


Down with Registration, Down with the DMV

by Kizmet



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Civil War Team Iron Man, Crack, Gen, Sassy Michelle Jones, Sassy Peter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-23 19:09:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16624757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kizmet/pseuds/Kizmet
Summary: Registration takes many forms:  professional registration, registered voters, driver's licences... Of course they're all evil (NOT!!!)Sorry, I forgot to take measures against monoric trolls who have nothing better to do than spam fics with their idiocy.





	1. Chapter 1

Peter wondered a little at the crowd gathered on the sidewalk just off school grounds. While most of the mob seemed to be varying shades of amused there was enough hostility there to make the hair on his arms stand on end. As much as most of the crowd saw it as a joke, there were at least a few very angry people mixed in. 

He got a little closer and saw a “I Stand with Cap” banner, along with a life-sized cardboard cutout of Steve Rogers in the uniform he’d worn during the Invasion of 2012. _‘Wow, an Accords demonstration and MOST of the people aren’t at each other’s throats? That’s amazing,’_ Peter thought.

“The government wants your name! They want your address! Your date of birth! Your picture! They want to know your weight, height and whether or not you wear glasses!” Flash declared. “They want to tell you what you can and can’t do! Where you can go and how you get there! Well I say no more! It’s a violation of your rights. Cap says “No!” and so should we!”

“What’s going on?” Peter asked MJ, who was perched on the wall dividing the school from the sidewalk.

“Flash got a DUI last weekend,” MJ reported blandly. “When his license got suspended it occurred to him that being required to have a license before you’re allowed to drive is just like the Avengers being required to register with the UN before they were allowed to enter a foreign country in pursuit of truth, justice and the Captain America Way.”

“Seriously?” Peter asked.

“He’s actually got a point, not the point he probably thinks he’s making but…” MJ shrugged. “Before you can legally drive you need to prove to the government’s satisfaction that you have the skill and physical ability to do so safely. If you get in a wreck or fail to obey traffic laws, your licence provides the police with your name and address so they know who to penalize and how to get a hold of you. You also need proof of insurance, so if there’s an accident someone’s on the hook for the damages. If you screw up badly enough, they take away your right to operate a motor vehicle.”

“And when Steve Rogers decided to become a fugitive before signing the Accords…” Peter bit back the urge to snicker.

“Yep,” MJ said. “He rejected the requirement that individuals who wished to pursue a career ‘Avenging’ be held to a clearly defined, written standard of qualification. He denied that any regulatory body should know who was involved, how to get in contact with them and who to charge for any damages if things go wrong. He basically insisted that, no matter how badly the Avengers might screw up, no one outside of the Avengers has the right to say they’re unqualified to continue. Conflict of interest much?”

“It’s a civil rights issue,” Peter said and he wished he were as good as MJ at keeping a straight face. “Being required to get a driver’s licence before you operate a motor vehicle is just like Nazi Germany.” He couldn’t help it, he started laughing. After a moment MJ joined in.


	2. Rights They Never Had

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thaddeus Ross presents a version of the Sokovia Accords which are everything Steve fears them to be... One that regulates Enhanced for being Enhanced rather than regulating anyone who wants to be an independently operated, international strike force. Why would the UN bother with creating a new set of laws to regulate that? There are already plenty of those on the books.

Secretary Ross stood before the Avengers looking smuggly triumphant. “For the past four years, you've operated with unlimited power and no supervision. That's an arrangement the governments of the world can no longer tolerate. But I think we have a solution.” He placed a thick document on the desk and passed it to Wanda.

She glanced at it briefly then passed it to Rhodey.

“The Sokovia Accords. Approved by 117 countries… it states that the Avengers shall no longer be a private organization. Instead, they'll operate under the supervision of a United Nations panel, only when and if that panel deems it necessary,” Ross continued.

Steve frowned. “The Avengers were formed to make the world a safer place. I feel we've done that.”

“Tell me, Captain, do you know where Thor and Banner are right now?” Ross asked. “If I misplaced a couple of thirty megaton nukes you can bet there'd be consequences... And in the interest of the Avengers NOT misplacing any more nukes, you Captain Rogers, as well as Ms. Maximoff and the Vision will be required to register and submit to tracking at all times…”

“That’s a massive violation of their rights,” Rhodes protested while Steve frowned with patented disapproval and red sparkled around Wanda’s figures.

“Please, like SI’s lawyers aren’t going to tear that to shreds,” Tony scoffed.

“You might be surprised, what people will agree to once the damages caused by the Avengers have been totalled up and released to the public,” Ross countered. “Actually, you need to register too Stark.  Given your incomparable ability to create weapons and your history of being kidnapped for the express purpose of being coerced to create weapons for the enemies of this country, you’re the most dangerous person in this room.”

“Tony’s not more dangerous than me,” Steve couldn’t keep himself from muttering.

Natasha glanced at the gem set in Vision’s forehead and seeing it was still dark she wondered if maybe it hadn’t just been Loki’s scepter that had made Steve feel personally insulted when Tony had implied he was less of a threat to the general public than angry bees.

“Captain Rogers, you might be a human tank but Stark has a proven ability to create an army of soldiers capable of going toe-to-toe with you,” Ross pointed out. “With the Ten Rings the world got lucky and he figured out a way to resist despite having no previous experience or training in resisting torture. We don’t want to count on getting lucky again.”

“Actually, you already have,” Tony said. “A.I.M. took me captive to perfect their Extremis Formula and I rescued myself, again.”

“So you got lucky twice,” Wanda said spitefully.

“Exactly,” Ross agreed. “Rhodes, you operate under the auspices of the US military, you’re fine to continue owning and operating the Iron Patriot.”

“War Machine,” Tony corrected and was ignored by everyone.

“Stark, as you’re no longer an arms manufacture for the US military, the exemptions granted to you to possess and demonstrate missiles, rocket or grenade launchers and the like has been rescinded. Your pricey lawyers can argue that the suit’s enhancement of strength and durability and even it’s flight capacity fall under the category of a…” Ross paused to shake his head in disgust, “A prosthetic but no one with half a brain is going to buy that the missiles packed into that suit of yours, or that you supply Mr. Wilson with, are not weapons.” He put up a few images of Iron Man firing missiles in different battles and Falcon using a grenade launcher in Lagos. “In case you’re confused, rockets with greater than three ounces of propellant are prohibited… For god’s sake, you need a licence to shoot off explosive projectile _fireworks_ so don’t try any nonsense about a fucking missile that can take out an armored vehicle being ‘not a weapon’. Bottle rockets and roman candles are illegal! The Accords have nothing to do with this one, you’re just being required to abide by existing rules for once in your life.”

“Thunderbolt Ross, in bed with the anti-gun crowd,” Wilson snorted. “I bet they love that.”

Ross shrugged, “Politics make strange bedfellows, I won’t deny it. If it gets you lot under control I will happily renounce the NRA. And in that vein, Wilson, you and Ms. Romanoff have seventy-two hours to get yourselves square with New York’s firearms laws: The handguns and tasers in your possession need to be registered or turned in. Again, don’t bother waiting for the Accords to be ratified, these laws are already on the books… Move your operation to Texas and we’ll have a different conversation. As for Barton, no one gives a damn about his bow or the standard arrows but the electrified ones fall under the same classification as Romanoff’s tasers, aka he really should check out the local regulations... wherever he happens to be. The rest of his shit is a damn pain to regulate, falls under at least a half a dozen different sets of regulations and they’re not even all enforced by the same agency. Really Barton’s more headache than he’s worth.”

“This was never an issue with S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Natasha said.

“Yeah, S.H.I.E.L.D. was good at getting exceptions to the rules made for them… And we all saw where that led,” Ross said. “We try to learn from our mistakes, so we’re less willing to allow extra-legal organizations running loose these days. Given your role in bringing S.H.I.E.L.D. down I’d expect you to appreciate that.”

“We aren’t S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Steve said sternly.

“Captain, your only employer in this century has been S.H.I.E.L.D.” Ross pointed at Natasha “She’s S.H.I.E.L.D., Barton’s S.H.I.E.L.D., Hill and her minions, who give you the information on which you base your decisions to go into the field are all S.H.I.E.L.D.” He pointed at Wanda, “Now she’s not S.H.I.E.L.D., she’s HYDRA, I’ve got to give her points for honesty but do you see where I’m going? You might not call yourself S.H.I.E.L.D. but you are an extra-legal entity that goes around the world trying to ‘save’ us normal people from threats that you feel we’re too pathetic to even be informed of let alone have a voice in. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck…

“But we’re getting off on tangent,” Ross said before he got more than outraged looks from his audience. “Really the U.S. Secretary of State shouldn’t be spending his time providing you with a personal explanation of the laws but because of this whole ‘hero’ thing you have going, I’m making time. Now I mentioned that Texas and New York have different gun laws, imagine this on an international scale. Just because Stark has a private jet that doesn’t mean you don’t have to go through customs. You all need valid passports, you need to fill out the proper paperwork to get authorization to take your weapons across any international borders… You need to DECLARE all your weapons when you go into a new country. You can’t legally just hop into Stark’s little jet and fly to wherever you decide you’re needed and start shooting the place up. The Accords would provide the mechanism to allow you to legally bypass customs in the case of a UN recognized emergency. We’re not actually creating new laws to limit you, we’re trying to create a system to allow you to do what you do without breaking all the laws that you’re currently, blithely, ignoring. After D.C., after Johannesburg, after Sokovia, after Lagos… The world isn’t willing to look the other way anymore. The laws that you’re breaking were put in place for good reason and you’ve shown that you aren’t so flawless as to be exempt from them.”

Vision stood and politely waited to be recognized. “While I am fascinated to learn of all the existing laws that the Avengers have been operating in violation of, I would like to return to the point where you intend to treat myself and my friends as weapons rather than people.”

Ross gave Vision a sour look. "You would remember that," he sulked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would just like to note how the Accords as presented in CACW (unlike the Accords in this story) did NOT differentiate between Avenges with superpowers, Avengers who used tech to give them superpowers and Avengers who relied on being highly trained and incredibly talented but who don’t really have powers… And the option to retire was on the table: You don’t want to sign, then you don’t do the job. Professional registration, about regulating what people do. Not a registration that was about identifying and singling out a particular people based on how they're born.


End file.
